I distinctly remember learning about The Commons from Mr. Brian Arentsen in what I think was supposed to be World History (it could also have been supposed to be Biology 1 or Physical Science as I had Mr. Arentsen for all of those topics in my not-so-large high school, but learned many things besides those topics from him). I remember feeling disgusted by people in general after learning about it (a common feeling from Mr. Arentsen’s classes – his motto was “apathy and incompetence abound”).

To summarize the paper by Garrett Hardin (1968) which put forth this theory sprinkled in with many other ideas:

The tragedy of the commons is that any common good shared between many people (e.g. grazing pasture, water, internet bandwidth) will inevitably be ruined if it is used freely and without rules imposed by an authority. The “rational man,” when considering how much to use of the common resource, is only motivated by his own gains (I’ll continue to use “man” here because that’s what Hardin used and frankly, yeah). Thus, to add one more cow to the common pasture (or to use one more gallon of water, etc) is a benefit to the man. The harm from adding one more cow (overgrazing, erosion, etc) is spread amongst all the users of the resource. Thus the “rational man,” seeing this score:

Pro of more cow	Con of more cow
+1	-1/(many people) = ~ 0

will always choose to add another cow. Seeing others do it creates a feeling of being cheated or missing out, which only encourages each individual to maximize for himself. Once everyone has done this, the common resource becomes degraded and ruined.

Some background: Hardin is a white American man who assumes that the only “rational” way to behave is to consider his own personal profits and nothing else. If at this point you’re thinking “that’s exactly how it is,” it does seem to be supported by lots of examples from the world today. That’s certainly how I felt when Mr. Arentsen explained it. The only thing to do to solve these issues according to Hardin is to privatize the resource or create strict regulations around it.

Elinor Ostrom, the only woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics (2009), decided to actually go study how common pool resources are shared around the world (unlike Hardin who thought the whole thing up without any actual research). She found that actually common pool resources have been collectively used for centuries and that all successful systems followed these 8 rules:

1. Define clear group boundaries for the common good
2. Match rules to local needs and conditions
3. Ensure people governed by rules can collectively change rules
4. Make sure the rule making rights of members are respected by outside authorities
5. Develop a system for monitoring carried out by community members
6. Use graduated sanctions for rule violators
7. Provide accessible, low-cost ways to resolve disputes
8. Build responsibility for governing common resources in tiers up through the entire system

These rules call back to how inequality worsens environmental degradation (week 2). Leveling the playing field by providing accessible dispute resolution and participation in the rule making prevents individuals from becoming too powerful and unfairly shaping the rules. These locally-specific rules also create group buy-in and prevent the feeling of being cheated out of your share in the resource. It is possible that there is no definitive Tragedy of the Commons – the tragedy is the Western/individualist/capitalist way of thinking.

Just for fun, let’s look at some of the other things he threw in his little think piece (which is attached):

• The morality of an act is depending on the current state of the system it happens in – e.g. polluting a stream is fine if you’re the only one polluting the stream since it won’t really matter, but if everyone does it it’s bad!
• The welfare state ruins the negative feedback that naturally governs birth rate by providing for children that wouldn’t have otherwise been provided for, enabling poor people to have more children.
• Asserts that if we only appeal to people’s consciences in order to control population, smart people who agree to have fewer children will be replaced by “the type of people” who do not care/do not understand; thus laws are needed to govern “breeding.”

Hardin’s ideas here are basically white supremacist and classist “replacement theory” (problematic like so many of his time, and dabbled in lots of other problematic things). The Commons also generally resonates with the overpopulation/Malthusian limits ways of thinking of the time of writing (1960s/70s). I certainly felt that there were too many people in the world in high school, but learning a little more puts it into a different light. I’ll touch on Limits to Growth next week.